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Mighty Morphin Power Rangers/Notes
Series Trivia * Due to the unforeseen popularity of the series, Saban Entertainment, the company that produced Power Rangers, was faced with the possibility of exhausting all of its Zyuranger footage with no more to fall back upon in order to continue producing the show. The company contacted Toei (the company which produced/produces the Sentai series in Japan) as well as Rainbow Productions (the company that designed and produced the monster suits), requesting another half-season's worth of Zyuranger footage specifically for Power Rangers. The two Japanese companies agreed, creating around 25 brand-new monsters and filming both human- and zord-sized battle footage for each, as well as incorporating elements from MMPR into the footage (a relationship between the Green and Pink Rangers and the Blue Ranger as the brains of the group being the most obvious examples). Around this time, Saban was also negotiating a deal with Toei to acquire footage from Gosei Sentai Dairanger, the sentai series which followed Zyuranger. Saban used more than half of the Zyu2 costumes in the remainder of Season One of Power Rangers. When they decided to replace the Dinozords with the mecha from Dairanger in Season Two (called Thunderzords in Power Rangers), the Zord footage of the remaining Zyu2 monsters became obsolete. To compensate for this, Saban attempted to splice the Zyu2 and Dairanger footage to ensure that the Zyu2 monsters were not seen fighting with the old Megazord that was not supposed to be there. In other words, it would show only the monster attacking followed by a shot of just the Thunderzords taking the damage. This did not always work, for occasionally the monster could actually be seen making physical contact with the old Megazord. * Lord Zedd is the first American-made villain with absolutely no Super Sentai counterpart. * The suits of several monsters were modified in some fashion in order to create new monsters for American footage. Such monsters were. ** Mr. Ticklesneezer was repainted and clad in a Santa Claus-like suit, becoming Grumble the Elf in Season Two's "Storybook Rangers." ** Snizard was repainted and modified with a cobra hood to become the Cobra Monster in Lightspeed Rescue's "The Cobra Strikes." ** Chunky Chicken was also disassembled for use in Turkey Jerk in Season Two's "Storybook Rangers." ** Grumble Bee was repainted and given buck teeth to become Waspicable in ''In Space'''s "The Wasp with a Heart." Waspicable also appeared in ''Lost Galaxy'''s "Heir to the Throne." ** Primator was repainted and given extra fur, and became the Snow Monster in Season Two's "Storybook Rangers." ** Saliguana was disassembled into the reptilian parts of Tritor from ''Zeo'''s "King for a Day." ** Silver Horns was repainted and a tongue was added, becoming Repellator in Season 3's "A Friend in Need." ** Merrick the Barbaric's head was removed, and his body was used for Incisorator in the Season Three episode "Changing of the Zords, Part II." Ironically, Incisorator's episode aired before Merrick's. * The expression "Morphenomenal!" was coined by Kimberly Ann Hart. Similarly, "It's Morphin Time!" was first spoken by Zordon in the episode "High Five." The expression "Back To Action" was coined by Jason Lee Scott * The Ninja and Shogun Ultrazords are the only Zord formations in Power Rangers history that are made from American footage. No suits or props were used in making them; the Bandai toys of each Zord were used to bring them to life on the show. The American versions of the toys were used for this, which presented some problems as the American versions are often noticeably different than the Japanese versions (and thus, the actual Zords on the show). For example, the left arm of the Japanese Shogun Megazord toy (and the real Shogun Megazord) is white. For some reason, the left arm of the Shogun Megazord toy was repainted pink for the American version. Thus, the arm would suddenly switch colors whenever the Shogun Ultrazord was formed. * In addition to being the original series, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers has also been considered the best among Power Rangers fans, winning a contest conducted by ABC Family in 2004 in which viewers voted for their favorite season. * The original series has the distinction of being the longest-running incarnation, lasting for three years (1993-1996), with the longest running single main continuity, lasting through Zeo, Turbo, and In Space. * Ron Wasserman composed and wrote the original Power Rangers theme song, a 4 minute-long track used for promotion titled "Go Go Power Rangers." The word 'go' would appear in almost all subsequent Power Ranger songs. * The order in which the Ninja Zords and Shogun Zords were acquired was reversed in Power Rangers. In the original source of those two Zord sets, Ninja Sentai Kakuranger, the Shogunzords were gained before the Ninjazords. Similarly, since there were only five Rangers in Kakuranger, the White Ninja Falconzord (called Tsubasamaru in Kakuranger) was a separate entity not belonging to anyone of them. Ninjaman/Ninjor didn't need a mecha since he could grow to Zord-size. * In Gosei Sentai Dairanger (which MMPR season 2 is based on), Tommy's White Ranger counterpart, Kou of the Howling New Star, is actually a child, which is why Tommy appears shorter in his first fight as the White Ranger. * Mondo the Magician, a metal-faced humanoid the Rangers defeated rather quickly in Season 2's "Storybook Rangers: Part 2," was actually the main villain from Dairanger. * Music used in later seasons of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers would later be used by Fox Kids again in the English-dubbed version of the anime Digimon Adventures, by Bandai. Examples of this is from the three part episode A Friend in Need in season 3. *Italy has a completely different title sequence. *As the original team of Rangers, Mighty Morphin's color scheme (excluding Sixth Rangers) is Red, Black, Blue, Yellow and Pink. The original color scheme would later be seen in In Space, Operation Overdrive and Megaforce. Season One * "Bones," was the name of the first monster to ever battle the Power Rangers in the inception of the series. Although in the lost episode (the original Pilot), they battled "King Sphinx", and Sphinx appeared again in the episode titled, "A Pressing Engagement" (the switch was due to the fact that Dora Sphinx was the first monster that the Zyurangers had to use their Daizyujin to beat, and since the pilot had to show the Megazord, which was an integral part of the show, they decided to use footage from that fight). * Billy Cranston (David Yost) wears blue plaid boxer shorts. In the episode "Power Ranger Punks," Billy and Kimberly (Amy Jo Johnson) become punks after drinking Rita's potion. Viewers can see the top of Billy's boxer shorts in his punk outfit, which is a blue plaid pattern. However, after the spell is removed by Alpha and Zordon, Billy immediately notices this and hides the top of his boxer shorts from sight. * Six video games based on this show were produced on the following systems: Sega Genesis, Sega CD, Sega Game Gear, Super Nintendo Entertainment System (which had two, one of which being called "Power Rangers The Fighting Edition) and Game Boy. *Despite the Yellow Ranger being a female within Power Rangers, in Zyuranger the Yellow (or Tiger) Ranger, named Boi, was male. Due to this, there is a more noticeable change in the physique of the Yellow team member than the other Rangers when the show cuts to Sentai footage. *Amy Jo Johnson (Kimberly) and David Yost (Billy) didn't do martial arts before the show, though both Johnson and Yost were gymnasts. So they took self defense classes and incorporated their talents into the choreography for the fight scenes. Austin St. John (Jason), Thuy Trang (Trini) and Jason David Frank (Tommy) were all martial artists long before the show. Walter Jones (Zack) also had some training beforehand. *The S1 episodes that used Zyuranger footage would commonly have the Rangers protecting a child due to the fact that Bandora's plots centered around attacking children. The American plots removed the child subplot from most of the episodes but some footage stayed where a Ranger would defend a child of the day from the Dora monster. *This season, Mighty Morphin 2, and Power Rangers Zeo were the only three seasons to have episode counts that exceeded their Sentai counterparts. This season has ten more episodes than'' Zyuranger. *During the intro sequence for this series, Jason is seen donning his ranger costume, but the clip preceding it is of Zack's Power Morpher materializing onto his belt. *In 2010, a revision of the first season of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was shown. At one point, it was classified as the eighteenth season of Power Rangers, however, it later lost this classification, and is treated as just a rerun of episodes. Nonetheless, this revision is referred to as "Special 18". **The reversion was not aired internationally originally. However, London Live, a local station in the British capital city, eventually started airing it in July 2017. *Interestingly, Jason is the only ranger of the original six whose name does not end with a long "E" sound. Note that Zack's full first name is Zachary. However, with the addition of Jason's middle name, Lee, all six rangers have rhyming first names. Season Two *This is the only season (in the Zordon Era or otherwise) where a part of the Ranger's Arsenal was directly upgraded from a previous season's tools, with the 5 original Dino Zords from season 1 being used as foundations for the Thunder Zords of this season (the Ninja powers of season 3, while still being "Mighty Morphin" powers, were technically replacements for the original powers, not upgrades). *Before deciding to use the ''Dairanger footage, sketches were created for original Thunderzords, essentially updated Dinozords, though an updated Tigerzord was used as part of this as well. *Despite being adapted from Gosei Sentai Dairanger, the core Zyuranger costumes from the previous season and Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger are still used rather than replacing them with the Dairanger suits, though Tommy's new White Ranger costume is from the sixth Ranger of Dairanger, which replaces the Dragon Ranger costume, due to Tommy losing his Green Ranger powers permanently as of "Green No More". *Lord Zedd is the very first Power Rangers villain to be American made instead of using the costume of Dairanger's main antagonist. *Due to a combination of splicing footage and lack of props, the Ranger's previously established weapons and sidearms cease to be used, the only exception being Tommy's sword Saba due to the available Dairanger footage. Although a (questionably poor) prop of the Dragon Dagger was created for new scenes, it was never used in battle. *Most footage for this season was mostly American rather than Japanese. *Episode 40: Rangers Back in Time, Part II hits the 100th Episode Mark. *This is the first Power Rangers series to feature a Red Ranger who does not serve as the team leader. This would be repeated in Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers with Aurico and Power Rangers Time Force with Wesley Collins. **Jason Lee Scott, the original Red Ranger and leader, was demoted to second-in-command in "White Light" as Tommy Oliver was named by Zordon new leader of the Power Rangers, making Tommy the first non-Red Ranger to serve as leader. **Rocky DeSantos, Jason's successor is the first Red Ranger to never serve as the leader of the team. However, he serves as the team's second-in-command. *This season, Mighty Morphin 1 and Power Rangers Zeo are the only three Power Ranger seasons where the episode counts exceed the episode counts of their Sentai counterparts. This season's episode count exceeds Dairanger's episode count by 2 episodes. *This is the first season where the rangers' zords/megazords have a cockpit that differs from the Sentai version, it followed by season 3 and Samurai. *This is the first season to begin with six Rangers. Season Three *This season is the first and so far last season to have Power Rangers wearing costumes (dinosaur, ancient animal and mythical animal themed) that don't match their power source (ninja powers). *Several elements of this season openly contradict Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, rendering it out-of continuity- such as Ninjetti, Ninja FalconMegazord, and even the way the rangers received their powers. *Tommy no longer uses Saba in battle due to a lack of available footage, similar to the rangers no longer using their weapons in season 2. *In Kakuranger, Master Vile (or at least his counterpart) is the main antagonist, while in MMPR, Vile is the father of Rita and Rito. *This season introduced Bob Papenbrook as a new voice actor to the PR voice cast to voice Rita's Skeleton-themed brother Rito Revolto. Papenbrook later voiced Deviot in PRLG. *Masked Rider appeared in the season's three-part special "A Friend in Need", which later allowed him to star in his own show until his cancellation in 1996 (during Power Rangers: Zeo's run, the end of VR Troopers' run and the debut of Big Bad Beetleborgs). *By the time of this season, Power Rangers' popularity began to wane but toy sales stayed the same. *This was the first season to feature bloopers in the ending credits, which would last through Power Rangers in Space. *This is the second season to feature American-shot scenes in a zord battle, the first was MMPR Season 2. *This is the only season to use an American exclusive zord combination (aka Titanus with the Ninja MegaFalconzord & Shogun MegaFalconzord to form the Ninja Ultrazord & Shogun Ultrazord respectively. *This is the second time where the Rangers' Zords/Megazords have a cockpit that differs from the Sentai version. *This is one of three Power Ranger season finales that features a cliffhanger ending (the others being Turbo and Megaforce). *This is the second season to begin with six Rangers. *This is also the third and final season where the core Zyuranger costumes from the last two seasons are used and the second and final season where Tommy's White Ranger costume from Dairanger is used.